Employers also paid women less than men because they believed in the “Pin Money Theory”, which said that women’s earnings were secondary to that of their male counterparts. Professions within pink-collar jobs are more likely to be consistent with job security and the need for employment, but salary and advancements seem to be much more slow-growing factors. During the 1950s, women were taught that marriage and domesticity were more important than a career. Those women working managerial and library or museums positions made an impact on jobs that have been feminized, such as teaching or secretarial work, are also referred to as women in the work force, but still encountered discrimination when they tried to advance.
h-century female working world (United States)
These women came with credentials from well-known colleges and universities and many were overqualified for their positions, but later were promoted to more prestigious positions. In 1940, teaching positions paid less than $1,500 a year and fell to $800 in rural areas. Social work became a female-dominated profession in the 1930s, emphasizing a group professional identity and the casework method.
- In rural areas where men had few career options, many more men were willing to teach for low salaries, and teaching feminized slowly.
- Teachers, from kindergarten to high school, play a significant role in educating and nurturing the next generation.
- The NRA had its flaws however, it only covered half of the women in the workforce particularly manufacturing and trade.
- By addressing these challenges, both employers and employees can work towards equity and fairness in the pink collar workforce.
- Upper- and middle-class families hired tutors or paid to send their children to schools run by individual schoolmasters.
- Later in this chapter, you can follow the link to the ‘gender bias test’ where you can test your own biases for gendered expectations of workers.
- Ironically, the very technologies designed and monopolized by men are now displacing them, resulting in a shift to roles like teaching, nursing, and childcare—fields that come with significant stigma for men.
Teaching was a part-time occupation, done mostly in non-farming months, or as a precursor to a full-time career for pre-professional men. The feminization of teaching must be understood in the evolving context of American education. Society viewed the social and personal characteristics of teachers differently throughout American history. Women account for only 10% of the construction workplace where physical strength is a focus, yet women make up over 46% of the workforce in 2022. There are many benefits to all workers, employees, and companies when people of all genders are included in a diverse range of industries. She is the first female Captain of an aircraft carrier in the U.S.
The image of the stern yet loving, young, single female schoolteacher was in place by the end of the 1800s. Feminization occurred more in the younger levels of school, with the majority of women teachers working in elementary schools (Rury, p. 27). Male principals were employed to deal with disciplinary problems that their female teachers were unable to handle.
Many female teachers, who had low status, reported to an often-male school principal. Requiring teaching credentials decreased the number of interested male teachers since they did not see teaching as a permanent occupation and were not willing to make an investment at a normal school or teacher’s institute when formal preparation became required for teaching. “The most apparently explanation for the preponderance of women moving into teaching in the antebellum period is that a plethora of job opportunities became available to those young men who chose not to labor on the farms” (Grumet, p. 37).
The Origin and Evolution of Pink Collar Roles
Women were isolated in kitchens and nurseries while their children were sent to standardized public schools. As machine-produced goods took the place of homemade https://plakkattyres.in/a-guide-to-bill-of-lading-in-shipping-importance/ ones, women needed a new source for income. The negative view of women meant that professions with women were viewed as less deserving of esteem. In urban areas, a few men were willing to commit to teaching, and were rewarded with higher salaries (Strober and Lanford, p. 220).
Pink-collar workers: Their value and importance in the workforce
One of the first groups fighting for working women’s rights was the Daughters of Liberty, formed in 1765. Earlier in the chapter you were asked about what particular workers look like in society. Women’s participation in the workforce has continued to increase in the last 20 years, yet at a slower pace than during the rapid rise of the 1970s-1990s. In the next section, we will see how historical factors have led to current gender segregation and gendered norms in the workplace.
However, the advent of new technology has disrupted traditional blue-collar work, pushing more millennial men into pink-collar roles. Favoring men in hiring decisions because of their gender is illegal in the United States under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This and other research disproves the notion that an occupation’s gender composition inevitably affects compensation. He also showed that a field’s historical gender associations have more impact on wages than the field’s current gender composition. Proponents of this “pink collaring” theory have cited a 2016 New York Times article by columnist Claire Cain Miller. They sought to end the sexist practices and assumptions causing gender inequality in the workplace.
Do Managers Get in Trouble When Employees Quit?
As women and men move towards equal standing, occupations currently dominated by women will hopefully receive the higher respect and prestige that they deserve. “Regardless of criticisms levied against their preparation or ability, teachers have customarily possessed superior educational credentials and higher measured intelligence than the national average” (Sedlak and Schlossman, p. 37). Teaching’s low status has allowed its feminization, and these factors have interacted to perpetuate the secondary role of women and teaching in society. Teaching also has a relatively low retention rate compared to other occupations, especially for women (Sedlak and Schlossman, p. 32). The teaching hours and part-year schedule are well suited to women with children, making the profession fit easily into traditional women’s lives, but this has contributed to the feminization of the profession, leading to lower salaries and prestige.
Due to societal norms, women tend to choose lower-paying, which reinforces the gender wage gap. The bottom graphic shows the percentage of women and men in the workforce over time. The top graphic shows how many women and men participated in the workforce over time. Historically held by men, blue-collar jobs encompass physical labor such as construction or power-holding jobs such as managers and executives.
- Two-thirds of the American Geographical Society (AGS)’s employees were women, who served as librarians, editorial personnel in the publishing programs, secretaries, research editors, copy editors, proofreaders, research assistants and sales staff.
- In 1910 women allied themselves with the Progressive Party who sought to reform social issues.
- Education institutions can unknowingly steer gendered behavior and norms, leading to particular job choices.
- Despite pink collar jobs being largely filled by women, men are gradually taking up these traditionally female-dominated roles.
- Traditionally, Feminism in public relations focused on gender equality, but new scholarship makes claims that focusing on social justice would better aid feminist cause in the field.
- This includes many clerical, administrative, and service jobs as well as care-oriented jobs in therapy, nursing, social work, teaching or child care.
A 1990 study by Allan H. Hunt and Timothy L. Hunt concluded that uneducated, unskilled blue-collar workers are most vulnerable to job displacement caused by robotics. Traditionally, Feminism in public relations focused on gender equality, but new scholarship makes claims that focusing on social justice would better aid feminist cause in the field. The study found that the influx of women coincided with a devaluation of the professions in terms of social prestige and financial compensation. Today, the economy in the United Kingdom still shows a prominent divide in a workforce with many occupations still labeled as “pink-collar”.
In these factories, workers frequently breathed dangerous fumes and worked with flammable materials. In 1920 American women legally gained the right to vote, marking a turning point for the American women’s suffrage movement; yet race and class remained as impediments to voting for some women. As explained in Buzzanell et al.’s research article, maternity leave is the time off from work a mother takes after having a child, either through childbirth or adoption.
The combination of the lack of attractive male jobs and new female jobs brought a good number of men into the teaching force, which had become almost all female. Female teachers embodied and taught gender roles to generations of young teachers who would grow up to perpetuate the sexist social system. Rural and southern areas tended to have more informal teaching with less discrepancy between the salaries of male and female teachers, and had mostly male teachers or an equal balance of men and women (Strober and Lanford). In fact, some scholars attest that “feminization occurred because school districts were unwilling or unable to pay the rising costs of retaining male teachers as school terms became longer and teaching became less attractive to men” (Rury, p. 27). Schooling in the more urban North was more formalized, with more female teachers and sharp pay differences between men and women.
Rural school districts, with typically fewer job opportunities for men, mixed-age classrooms, and shorter school years, retained high proportions of male teachers. In the South and other rural areas, young, male, educated teachers traveled around teaching while preparing for professional careers before the responsibilities of raising their own families. Today’s teachers are predominantly women; they come from all class backgrounds; and they commonly teaching positions throughout their lives. In the 1900s, men re-entered teaching as other occupations became acceptable for women, who were able to pursue careers outside of teaching. Industrialization, the availability of other jobs, and the perception of education affected the degree to which teaching became feminized. All of these were predominantly male, though educational decisions were implemented by an increasingly female teaching force.
Manual labor, such as construction or factory work, is often referred to as blue collar work. They are called “white collar” workers due to the white business shirts they wear when heading to the office. White collar workers are corporate-level employees who are involved in office work. The term “pink collar” is less known, but white and blue collar are common.
Some countries including Mongolia, Belarus and Lesotho are now leading the charge with female representation in these occupations, with women comprising more than half of STEM employment. Failure to address these evolving needs might further accentuate gender inequalities in the workforce and place an additional burden on the already strained care workers, especially in the aftermath of COVID-19 pandemic. Interestingly, care occupations outside the care sector (i.e., personal care workers in the hospitality sector,) as well as non-care occupations in the care sector (i.e., administrative staff in care homes, hospitals, or clinics) appear to have a more balanced gender distribution. For instance, occupations related to nursing and childcare exhibit exceptionally high female shares, with figures reaching over 90 per cent. In many pink-collar fields, female workers primarily comprise the employee population, but men still hold most higher-level management roles. Employers often pay them lower wages, even in fields like social work or teaching, with reasonably extensive education and licensing requirements.
In the United Kingdom, careers within nursing and teaching are not considered pink-collar jobs anymore, but instead are labeled as white-collar. It raised wages, shortened workers’ hours, and increased employment for the first time maximizing hour and minimizing wage provisions benefiting female workers. However, opportunities for higher education expanded as women were admitted to all-male schools like the United States service academies and Ivy League strongholds. In 1973 the average salaries for women were 57% compared to those of men, but this gender earnings gap was especially noticeable in pink-collar jobs where the largest number of women were employed. Later on in the 1970s and 1980s as women began to fight for equality, they fought against discrimination in jobs where women worked and the educational institutions that would lead to those jobs.
Being educated was an expectation for women entering the paying workforce, despite the fact that their male equivalents did not need a high school diploma. Howe’s analysis went beyond simply identifying these roles; she explored how social expectations, gender norms, and structural inequalities confined women to these positions. These positions were seen as extensions of traditional domestic responsibilities and were characterized by lower pay, limited career advancement opportunities, and a lack of prestige compared to “blue-collar” or “white-collar” jobs. While these jobs may also be filled by men, they have historically been female-dominated (a tendency that continues today, though to a somewhat lesser extent) and may pay significantly less than white-collar or blue-collar jobs.